Queen of the Struggle

by Nik Korpon

  “You’re insane to partner with him.”

  “You only know what lies the Tathadann told you,” she says. “You have no idea what we could accomplish in this city with their help. We’ll tear down the vestiges of the Tathadann, including their architecture, and build something that reflects this city. The whole city.

  “But all of this would require the remaining rebels – the ones, I’m sorry, that you’ve been helpful in identifying – to concede, and join us.”

  “There are rebels and there are insurgents. The insurgents, Perre’s people, they won’t listen because they’re only content with chaos. And the rebels, my people? They’ll never lay down their weapons. Not for someone who beheaded their savior.”

  “They are all fighting against us, so they are all rebels. They’re all fighting against Eitan,” she says. “Do you know why, out of all the abandoned buildings in the city, the rebels chose those high-rises to take over?”

  “Why?”

  “Because, with a good enough rifle, they’ll have a clear shot on us.” She points toward the mountains, down at the foothills. “That’s where the new power station is going. The one that will bring Eitan back online, provide water and electricity to everyone. Free, consistent water and electricity.”

  “If the power station is such a good thing for the city, why would they try to take it out?”

  “You already answered that,” she says. “I’m the one who beheaded their savior. They’ll never listen to me, even if they don’t know what Daghda was really like.”

  “What if I pitched it? They might listen to me.”

  Brighid nods for what seems like forever. “I wouldn’t count on that. Between you being seen with us, and Henraek’s contentious status…” She trails off a minute. “It only takes one bullet, and that bullet doesn’t care about mislaid patriotism. I understand where those people are coming from, all that idealism and principle. I’ve seen it exposed for what it really is a hundred times over in my travels, but I still understand it.”

  “But?”

  “But you have to clear the brush before you plant the field,” she says.

  “That’s someone’s sister out there. That’s someone’s son,” I say.

  “So are the dead. They’re sisters, sons, fathers, mothers,” she says. “So if people have to die – or, like these rebels, fight against any leader who isn’t the amorphous the people – then they have to die. I’d rather them join us and I would gladly welcome them in, but they’re trying to kill us while we’re trying to help Eitan. And I’m sorry, but the whole must come before the individual.”

  “Morrigan said the same thing to us.”

  “What would you have us do, Emeríann?” she says, more aggressive than I like. “What’s your grand plan to unite Eitan? Should we let the rebels go? Should we let loose ten angry people so that they can gun down thirty of my people who are trying to provide electricity and water for two hundred more? Just because they’re on the ‘wrong side’?”

  I stare through her a moment. “I don’t know what the answer is.”

  “It’s easy to tear down what’s wrong. It’s much harder to build up what’s right. I’m not saying we’re doing a perfect job, and I don’t know what the right answer is, but when I say the whole, I mean everyone.”

  “Except for those who stand against you.”

  “No. Except for those who try to kill us.” She points out beyond the mountains. “The city. The counties. Anyone willing to work to better our home is welcome. But we can’t let an angry handful ruin it for everyone else.”

  “What are you worried about? You’ve got all the guns and shit of Ragjarøn behind you. Ødven eats out of your palm.”

  She snorts. “Ødven Äsyr is helpful right now, but the day will come when we need to survive on our own. If we can all pull together and work as one, we will stand. If we don’t, if we continue with in-fighting and cutting down one another at the knees with ideological purity, then we will fall. But whatever our fate, it will be our fate.”

  I look out over the city, at groups of prisoners huddled around a fire – a fire lit inside a goddamned building – and think about what she said. The possibilities of it. What if this city was actually rebooted with real people in mind? With something that resembled inclusion, equality, someone who gave as many shits about the Brigus as the bankers. Could she actually be telling me the truth?

  Maybe it’s because I watched this woman chop off her own father’s head, but some part of me still calls bullshit on the whole people’s revolution thing. Maybe it’s Henraek’s spirit, traveling alongside me.

  “Why should anyone believe you?” I say to her. “What makes you different from any other party mouthpiece, or the Morrigans – who, you know, many people will see you as an extension of?”

  And then she turns to me, almost smiling from incredulity.

  “You know how I grew up. Do you know how many cities I’ve seen ripped apart? How many countries I’ve seen thrown into civil war? How many acts I’ve borne witness to that started those wars? If there’s anyone who understands the dynamics of mass populations, who can predict reasonably well which actions will incite bloodshed and which will spurn it, I think I’m the prime-goddamn-candidate.”

  I hold up my hands, partially to calm her down and partially so that if she’s angry enough to charge me, at least I’m ready. “I’m not saying you don’t, but you understand how you’re viewed around here.”

  “I do. Unfortunately.” She inhales a long time, then lets out a breath that seems to drain her of everything. “Is moving twenty families into pre-fab housing the best choice? Maybe not, but it’s better than four families taking that space and the others living on the street. Should they all be able to voice their opinion on that housing? Sure, probably. But while they’re arguing about who gets which unit, how many are still sleeping beneath a tarp in an alleyway.” She exhales again, her shoulders sagging. “We’re not a perfect system, Emeríann, but we’re trying.”

  She looks out over the city, rests down on her haunches, picks at the remnants of whatever this building once was.

  “Eitan’s tired. There’s been nothing but war and oppression for the last sixty years. Running from building to building. Walking hunched over. Jumping at every bang. Rationing water down to the sip. That’s just – that’s no way to live. Especially not if there’s the possibility of something creating better.”

  And the way she gazes over the land, with that deep longing in her eye and the sadness of a revolutionary who has been in the field for far too long, it’s easy to think that she really means it. I can see where she’s coming from at least. She’s some combination of Forgall and Henraek. A dangerous mix of optimism and victimization. Being cast as the aggressor in her own country, while still fighting for the advancement of said country. It’s enough of a contradiction to make Henraek’s head explode.

  Brighid looks over to me. “If you have better suggestions, please, tell me.”

  I wish I could give her something but I can’t, because she’s right: tearing down is easy, but rebuilding is much harder.

  This is not even remotely the woman who I’d pegged her to be. This is someone who cares. Someone who will fight. Someone, who, as we said at the beginning of the uprising, can actually win.

  When we get back to the house later, I bid Brighid good night and head up to my room. I sit on the bed for a little while, letting everything process. Brighid might be batshit insane and have zero fear of death, but after everything she said, I’m not so sure she’s the Morrigan I took her to be. I can hear the Tobeigh in her, echoes of similar conversations I had with Forgall. So similar that, despite how much it kills me to say it, I have to reconsider my position on her.

  I kneel before the nightstand and pull out the drawer, then pause. Am I really going to do this again, send another letter? I don’t even know if Henraek got the first one, if Melein was able to get it out or was caught in the process of smuggling. If whoever he gave
it to was able to get it to Henraek. If Henraek got it and immediately left for Eitan and will miss the second letter.

  I’m struck again by how much technology we have at our fingertips yet how far away all of that is for me right now.

  Whatever. I can second-guess myself all day, but all that will do is put Henraek one step closer on a collision course with Brighid, put him in a position where he has to make a decision that might be impulsive and will probably be self-destructive. If it’s our destiny to lead this rebellion, to finally liberate Eitan, then I’ll have to trust that Nahoeg will safely guide the letter to Henraek. And if Nahoeg fails us, Henraek and I will just do it ourselves.

  I start picking at the rest of the drawer liner. It comes out easy this time.

  I was wrong.

  She might be what we’ve been looking for.

  We’re going to rebuild Eitan.

  I miss you.

  15.

  HENRAEK

  “That’s where they extract them,” Dyvik says, pointing to the metal dome behind the fencing. “Then there’s some kind of processing in those domes before they’re able to come out into the world. Otherwise they would just evaporate when they touch air. I don’t fully understand how Ødven’s people do it, but that’s what our people inside have found.”

  I’m still having a hard time comprehending what Dyvik is telling me, which is saying something for a man who used to make a living by stealing and selling memories.

  “Is Gaagnir Nilsson a common name here?” I say.

  Dyvik looks puzzled. “Not at all.”

  Lyxzä speaks up. “He was a farmer who lived just outside town. If you took the main road a mile or so south, you’d find his place. He raised sheep.”

  “I saw a man with that name in Vårgmannskjør, two days ago.”

  Lyxzä shakes her head. “Gaagnir died ten years ago.”

  “But Ødven called out that name and spoke to someone.”

  Dyvik nods. “You saw his ände.”

  “Ände?”

  “That’s what we call them,” Dyvik says. “It’s more like a ghost or spirit than a soul. We believe in a world beyond this one, but soul implies a benevolent god, which we don’t do up here.

  “Anyway,” he continues, “two years after they extracted Gaagnir’s ände, he tied a cinderblock to his waist and walked into the sea. He couldn’t deal with the separation anymore.”

  “It can drag you down if you don’t fight against the feeling,” Lyxzä says. “It’s not uncommon to find bodies floating in the harbor.”

  I shudder at imagining how cold that water must be.

  “Some people can’t handle the feeling of separation,” Lyxzä continues, “like a piece of you that is always missing. When your ände leaves, it takes part of you with it. It’s like the volume is turned down. Things aren’t quite as bright, not quite as sharp. Sometimes it’s more, sometimes less, depending on how spirited the person is.”

  I wonder if that was supposed to be a joke or if it’s just something lost in translation.

  “Your ände is still part of you. It can feel things, physically and mentally. It just doesn’t have your – what do you call it, volition? Some people even say they can feel what the ände is feeling, like a cord that’s not completely cut, and they can’t tell when they’re feeling something themselves or when the ände is feeling it. After a while, it can drive you insane.”

  I hear clicking behind me, and when I turn around I see Cobb creeping toward Lyxzä’s ände, his hand out as if he wants to touch it but is scared. I snap my fingers at him and he pulls back like he’s been bitten.

  “Watch your brother,” I say to Donael, who looks annoyed that I’m keeping him from hearing more. He’s too close already, and I couldn’t handle losing him again.

  “Let me get this straight,” I say to Dyvik, trying to understand why this is so urgent for them. “On the winter solstice of their thirty-fifth year, every citizen of Brusandhåv is required by Ragjarøn to commit their soul–”

  “Their ände.”

  “They’re required to commit their ände to the party, who extracts them and then… conditions them… in a labor farm. And then those ändes are shipped out to do all of the menial work in Vårgmannskjør? Am I following you correctly?”

  “And that’s just a side benefit. When the ände is harvested, energy is released. That dome collects the energy, which is then used to power the capital for a good period of time. Then the next wave of people commit and the grid gets more power and the businesses get more workers, and so on and so on. In the end they get our ändes and our energy,” Dyvik says.

  The way he describes it, the process sounds not dissimilar to the stripping used by the Tathadann, except it doesn’t kill them and it produces energy.

  “That sounds awful,” I say to them. “But without being rude, you all still have it much better than we did in Eitan. You have running water. There are no bodies in the streets.” I gesture up at the sky. “You can see the sun. Do you know how long I went without seeing the sun? Years and years.”

  “Yes, we have those things. We’re lucky to have them.” Lyxzä takes a step closer to me. “But at what cost?”

  Something occurs to me. “If people keep committing, won’t all the jobs eventually be taken? And then they can stop committing?”

  “They send the older ändes to other countries and get resources in return,” Dyvik says.

  “Exploiting us in this life is bad enough,” Lyxzä says. “But according to our belief, without our ände we are doomed to wander the Great Beyond as only half of ourselves. We spend eternity wanting while our ände spends it working.”

  “Lyxzä committed two years ago,” Dyvik says. “She understands that wanting.”

  “And you haven’t?” I ask Dyvik.

  “He turned thirty-five two months ago. Magnus, a week later,” Lyxzä says. “Many of Nyväg will be thirty-five this year, and the solstice is not far away. It is very hard to fight without your ände.”

  Which is why they are so determined to do this now.

  “It’s not just one camp, either.” Dyvik nods to the one beyond the graveyard. “That’s the one for this region. Ours was the first they built, so it’s the largest. But there are more than a dozen around the country. Many are outside Vårgmannskjør, where there is the greatest demand, but they reach from here out past Skaö, deep in the Jötun Mountains.”

  “They give you no choice in whether to do it or not?” I say it a little more forcefully than I’d meant. “They just strip your souls – your ändes, whatever –without your permission and leave you feeling muted for eternity. Just for electricity. That’s horrible.”

  Dyvik comes closer, puts his hand on my shoulder. “And that is why we need your help to stop it.”

  “And your group, Nyväg, you’re trying to, what, destroy the machines to stop them from committing any more?”

  “Hey,” Donael says, butting in. “Wasn’t that guy in Vargman-whatever Nyväg? The one they, um…”

  “Yes, Donael.” I put a little steel in my voice, trying to keep him out of this conversation. A chill runs up my spine, remembering the sound of the man’s throat opening. “The one who was murdered.”

  “They do that to anyone caught dissenting,” Lyxzä says. “No matter which of the provinces they’re captured in, they’re brought to Vårgmannskjør and sacrificed before Evivårgen.”

  “But we continue fighting. That is the kind of dedication we have in Nyväg,” Dyvik says. “We know that you’ve been sent out here by Ødven to monitor us.”

  “His words were ‘restore order.’”

  Lyxzä breathes out a laugh. “And how many people does he expect you to kill in order to do that?”

  “I asked the same thing.”

  “I told you they were horrible.” Donael shakes his head, an expression on his face that is equally familiar and terrifying. The expression of bone-deep disgust. I remember it well, on Walleus’s face, and in the mirro
r, years ago.

  “That’s why I’m telling you to stay away from it,” I say to Donael. I mean for it to come out strong and authoritative, but there’s a waver in my voice I can’t keep out. Like it can sense Donael’s interest and is fighting to get through, or that my own voice senses my hypocrisy and is betraying me.

  “We’re asking for your help.” Dyvik clears his throat, then continues. “Ragjarøn has ruled over us for too long,” he says. “The Äsyrs simply take whatever they want and expect everyone in Brusandhåv to accept it as what’s best for us. This country was formed by stealing native lands, combining communities with no relation to one another, without any input from our people. Who are they to decide what we need, what path we should take? We have no voice, no path of recourse when we’ve been wronged, no arena to air our grievances. There’s no congress, no courts, no parliament, no group of common people brought on as advisors. Just those two tyrants and their oändlig insikt, their supposed ability to somehow see inside the hearts of the people. We want our land back, to be our own rulers again, to answer only to ourselves and our people.”

  I understand what it’s like to ache for self-rule, to define yourself for yourself and be beholden to no one, especially as tyrannical as the ruling parties could be. If I’m being honest with myself though – I’m just tired. I lost my wife. I lost my son for too many years. I lost my best friend – who was very nearly my only friend. I’ve lost my girlfriend. I don’t want to lose any more.

  But at the same time, that familiar tingling spreads through my body, starting in the center of my chest and radiating out like a star gone supernova. The thrill of possibility, of free breath, of an unrestrained tongue and an unshackled mind. Of a better future for my boys, and all the other young ones like them.